$500-$600 gaming build for a friend

M

mschind0

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A friend of mine just called me asking for advice on getting a new PC. His "what are you doing with this PC?" and budget are very similar to this other build below, http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1517150, but with some key differences. BTW, I did one of these threads back in October for my own desktop, got some great guidance/advice, and the PC has worked like a charm with no problems (the video card fan spins loud, but that's it.)

Something to keep in mind is, for his budget, would he be better off getting a pre-built, off-the-shelf computer (especially since he would have to buy a Windows license if building his own)? If so, what brand/model/spec would you recommend?

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing?
General browsing, WoW, Excel, Word

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$500-600 including tax and shipping.

3) Where does he live?
Bayonne, NJ (I live in Fair Lawn, NJ)

3A) Do you live near a Microcenter?
Yes. I live very close to one.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget?
Everything but the monitor - he's going to buy that separately later.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing?
Nothing. Actually, now that I think about it, when I bought my SSD, I accidentally bought 2 from Newegg. I have an Intel X25-M 80GB that's still in the unopened box. I could give it to him, I guess. Or I could sell it at a loss. Would an SSD be worth it in this type of system?

6) Will you be overclocking?
No.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
He plans on buying a 24" or 27" monitor.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within a month.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard?
Nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe USB 3 if the price differential is minimal, but perhaps not even that. I should ask him; I doubt he knows about USB 3.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
No.

I would try to spec out some components on my own, but to be honest I'm not that informed myself - for my own PC I relied on the advice I got here (SSD - good advice!) and comparing to comparable builds/budgets. And while I did build my own PC only a few months ago, unlike my friend I work from home, the PC was a work expense, and I got a much more high-end PC, so I haven't done any research on components in his price range.

Thanks in advance for your help.
 
Unless this is a very good friend, I'd say keep the SSD and don't bother selling it at a loss. With that budget, a SSD is not a smart choice. Unless you're getting the SSD for free :)

Since WOW is involved, he's better off building his own.

$106 - AMD Athlon X2 245 CPU + Biostar A785G3 AM3 AMD 785G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
$54 - Patriot 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$110 - PowerColor AX4850 1GBD3-PH Radeon HD 4850 1GB PCI-E Video Card
$56 - Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$25 - LG GH22NS50 DVD Burner
$50 - Corsair 400CX 400W PSU
$50 - Cooler Master Elite 335 RC-335-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$100 - Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM
---
Total: $551 plus tax. All of the above parts have free shipping right now. Dunno if they'll have free shipping in a month though.

If you do go with the prebuilt route, a good majority of the times you will have to replace the PSU and GPU. So at a minimum, add $160 to the price of any prebuilt for the costs of a GPU and PSU upgrade. For a prebuilt to be worthwhile then, it would have to cost about $380 to $400 and have a significantly faster CPU at a minimum. Also at a minimum, the rest of the specs of the prebuilt should match the above RAM and HDD size/speed.
 
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Thanks for the quick reply, Danny. I believe you helped me on my own build. This looks like a great build for him and a huge upgrade.

A few quick questions.

1) You write "Since WoW is involved, he's better off building his own." Why exactly is that? I ask for a bit of elaboration because he was skeptical he could do better building it himself.

2) You list only 2 GB of RAM. Shouldn't he really have 4GB of RAM? I thought at this point 4GB was standard for any decent system. I have 6GB, and I'm not sure if I've ever gone over 4, but I've definitely gone over 2.

3) I still have some Arctic Silver 5 from when I put together my own system. I can use that on his CPU as well, right?

4) He is a very good friend. I'm not sure how else I can use the extra SSD. I still have 23 GB on it, and I rarely install new software. It's been collecting dust for 6 months now.

Thanks again,
Mitch
 
1) WOW is a computer game. AFAIK, there are no prebuilt gaming PCs that costs $500 to $600. Most prebuilt gaming PCs cost around $1000 minimum. As shown above, you can easily build a gaming PC for $550 with OS. I doubt you'll find a prebuilt gaming PC with similar specs for the same price

2) Once tax was factored in, 4GB of RAM was not possible. If he can up the budget by another $50, then yeah 4GB of RAM is possible.

3) The stock thermal paste is pretty good as is. No real need to use the AS5
 
Why not put that SSD into your laptop? Your friend should be fine with the HDD Danny listed, as its one of the fastest out right now in that price range. The X25-M would do wonders in your laptop. If you need more storage space, grab an external enclosure for your current laptop HDD. ;) ... or do you no longer use that laptop since you have such a nice desktop? :p

You could sell him your case, btw, and pickup a quieter case for yourself (if the 300 is too loud); heh, same goes for vidcard, too (sell him your 4870 and pickup a 5770, unless you picked up a 27" monitor like you were planning; in which case, keep your card until you can upgrade to a 5850 or better, hehe).
 
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